Facebook's Zuckerberg to give away over half his $6.9 billion wealth

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Following in the footsteps of the philanphropic work of other tech billionaire Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that he is to give away over half of his $6.9 billion wealth to charity either before or following his death.

Signing up to Gates’ The Giving Pledge, Zuckerberg joins 57 other wealthy families and individuals who have agreed to share their fortunes, including Warren Buffet, Paul Allen, Carl Icahn and Bill Gates himself.

“People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done? With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts,” said Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement.

It’s not the first time Zuckerberg has made charitable donations. He previously gave away $100 million to the Newark Public Schools system, as well as an undiscolsed amount to the open social netowrk project Diaspora.

Can we get a big “Like” button for Zuckergerg here? That ought to go someway to cleaning up his image after the world got to see his apparent selfish-streak in The Social Network flick.